Baby Tiger Fanzine

Argus J Roper Interviews Diwan

In the shambolic recently decommissioned kitchen of the Caledonian Backpackers' 'Celebrity Dressing Room', Argus J. Roper, clutching a battered dictaphone and his slightly soiled Homburg Hat, met Samba Sene, lead vocalist of Senegalese dance band, Diwan.

Roper: My name's Jon, pleased to meet you.

S: My name's Samba Sene.

Roper: And you sing and you play the guitar and you play that drum that I don't know the name of. What's that called?

S: The drum's name is 'Sabar'. It's a Senegalese percussion called Sabar.

Roper: Thanks. How did you come together as a band?

S: It's about the meaning of the band, Diwan, which means 'world'. The composition of Senegalese people, Nigerian people, Ghanian people, English people, Scottish people just to describe how the world could be if we all live in perfect harmony.

Roper: I've got to do this cos it's a stupid rock and roll interview, so it's a stupid rock and roll question. What are your influences? Aside from the obvious. Ahmmmn.

S: To tell you the truth my influences are the singers in whom I grew up, feeling their music and dancing their music. Before I became a singer or a musician, or whatsoever, I used to be somone who liked dancing, so those people who used to make me dance and make me enjoy that dance, that's my influences. Such as Baba Maal from Senegal, Yousouf N'Dour, Salif Katal, Alfa Blondi, Bob Marley, you know. It's vast, you know...influences.

Roper: Thank you. There was another question I'd been meaning to ask you – you have such and amazing voice, I was going to ask you if you'd always been a singer or did you learn?

S: To tell you the truth I started my first classes about like how to sing when I came to Edinburgh. Not when I first came to Edinburgh, but a month ago (afterwards?), because I met a girl – she's a classical pianist player, composer, you know, someone who learn how to compose. I just compose through my feeling – I never went to school to learn music.

In guitar I'm self taught. I'm really self taught; I'm just amazed sometimes, I'm like, where the hell did you learn that from? Because it's all about feeling, just expressing my feelings. I thank god I've got some musicians who know about music, from Scotland, from England. They learn music, they have been playing for such a long long long long time. Most of them are in (another) band; they just think, you know, that we can do it as a band, together, you know we work hard and try.

They even don't understand what I sing. But the melody I put in to it to inspire them so that they are committed and put the work in to it.

Roper: Well, I'm becoming a fan of yours. I've seen you play before at the Bongo club a few months ago, I've seen you play tonight and had a really good time, and I understand that I'm going to be seeing you again at the Knockengorrach festival this coming spring.

S: Well It's been a disappointing year for us performing, because last year we did a lot of performing regarding festivals and stuff like that, you know we did the fringe festival from day one till day n, you know but this year we haven't been doing anything much except just finishing the bookings we had last year. Knockengorrach is one place, and we're going to be going to Chester, down in England.

We were going to play at Knockengorrach this year, but we didn't have a proper demo tape. I'm embarassed when people come to me at gigs and ask whether we have a CD to sell -I'm like 'we don't even have a proper demo tape', let alone a CD to sell. But it's not our fault- we just don't have the support yet to be able to do that in a professional way. All we've got to do is just carry on playing and see how it goes.